ELISA: Automated Applications
ELISA is the acronym for Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay. The technique employs antibodies to bind a sample antigen of interest and then to link a signaling chemistry to the bound antigen. There are many classifications of ELISA methods and there are many means of producing and measuring detection signals. ELISA protocols employ cycles of adding reagents, incubating the reagents to allow binding and then washing off the unbound reagents. When constructions of all of the links are complete, the signaling chemistry is detected by a reader.
Caliper Life Sciences has designed a wide range of automated solutions to address partial or complete ELISA processing with the aim of generating maximum “walk away” time. As a first step, the Twister® II robot arm and stackers can sequentially deliver a quantity of stopped assays to the reader. This allows the operator to focus on other, higher valued, activities. Intensive liquid handling, mixing and incubation timing steps can be accomplished with either of Caliper’s Sciclone® G3 or Zephyr® liquid handling platforms. These platforms may also track barcode information and refrigerate or warm reagents/reactions. The completed ELISAs may be manually transported to the reader or the Twister II may be employed to deliver the test samples to the reader. In addition, the Twister II may also move reactions to temperature controlled incubators, washing devices and bulk liquid dispensers. Scheduling, integration and control of third party devices is accomplished with Caliper’s iLink Pro software, a highly graphical, third generation user interface.
Fully-automated, complete “walk away” ELISA automation solutions are available as Caliper’s Staccato® systems featuring iBLOX construction technology.
